Future Trends Series - GR:EEN Project
Title of the report
Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development
Area
Science and technology
Reporter
The Rockefeller Foundation and Global Business Network
Type of the Reporter
Private Organisation
Periodically updated?
No
First issued year
2010
Latest update
/
Official website
http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/
Language available
English
Short summary
The focal question of this project is: “How might technology affect barriers to building resilience and
equitable growth in the developing world over the next 15 to 20 years?” Two critical uncertainties have
been selected: (i) political and economic alignment; (ii) adaptive capacity. Each of these uncertainties is
expressed as an axis that represents a continuum of possibilities ranging between two endpoints. Strong
and weak for political and economic alignment; low and high for adaptive capacity. When you cross
these uncertainties, these axes create a matrix of four different futures (matrix below can be found on
p. 16 of the report):
- “Lock step: a world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with
limited innovation and growing citizen pushback”;
- “Clever together: a world in which highly coordinated and successful strategies emerge for addressing
both urgent and entrenched worldwide issues”;
- “Hack attack: an economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals
thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge”;
- “Smart Cramble: an economically depressed world in which individuals and communities develop
localized, makeshift solutions to a growing set of problems”.
Key trends
1. The link between technology and governance is critical to consider in better understanding how
technology could be developed and deployed. In some futures, the primacy of the nation-state as a unit
of analysis in development was questioned as both supra- or sub-national structures proved more salient
to the achievement of development goals. In other futures, the nation-state’s power strengthened and
it became an even more powerful actor both to the benefit and to the detriment of the development
process, depending on the quality of governance. Technologies will affect governance, and governance
in turn will play a major role in determining what technologies are developed and who those technologies
are intended, and able, to benefit.
2. Development work will require different levels of intervention, possibly simultaneously. In
some scenarios, philanthropic organizations and other actors in development face a set of obstacles
in working with large institutions, but may face a yet-unfolding set of opportunities to work with
nontraditional partners — even individuals. The organization that is able to navigate between these
levels and actors may be best positioned to drive success.
3. The potential value of scenarios as one critical element of strategy development. These narratives
have served to kick-start the idea generation process, build the future-oriented mindset of participants,
and provide a guide for ongoing trend monitoring and horizon scanning activities. They also offer a
useful framework that can help in tracking and making sense of early indicators and milestones that
might signal the way in which the world is actually transforming.
4. New innovations and uses of technology will be an active and integral part of the
international development story going forward. The changing nature of technologies could shape
the characteristics of development and the kinds of development aid that are in demand. In a future in
which technologies are effectively adopted and adapted by poor people on a broad scale, expectations
about the provision of services could fundamentally shift. Developing a deeper understanding of the
ways in which technology can impact development will better prepare everyone for the future, and help
all of us drive it in new and positive directions.
Suggestions
/
Methodology
Research from secondary sources and in-depth interviews
Reference to other trends reports? If yes, which reports?
/